Delhi control on poll preparations worries Telangana BJP leaders

Comparing the activities in Madhya Pradesh, leaders here point out that the central leadership has taken over the poll campaign with rallies, street corner and public meetings being organised on a daily basis there.

Hyderabad: The delay in announcing candidates is causing restlessness among BJP leaders and functionaries in Telangana as rival parties have already launched their poll campaigns and even announced schemes and programmes to garner the support of the people.

State leaders argue that the party leadership has released two lists of candidates in Madhya Pradesh, which is going to polls along with Telangana, where even selection of candidates has not been done yet. On the other hand, the BRS has already announced 115 candidates and the Congress is in the final stages of finalising the candidates with the first list expected shortly.

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Comparing the activities in Madhya Pradesh, leaders here point out that the central leadership has taken over the poll campaign with rallies, street corner and public meetings being organised on a daily basis there. In fact, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has so far addressed eight public meetings and rallies in that State and will be addressing a few more in the coming days.

In Telangana, the party has so far not launched its poll campaign on a large scale nor taken up any kind of outreach programmes. The party has so far not constituted election and campaign committees to prepare strategies and programmes. The only major programme so far has been fixed is Modi’s public meeting on October 1 in Mahabubnagar and another one on October 3 in Nizamabad.

The leaders are also worried about the increasingly tightening control of the central BJP leadership on poll preparations in Madhya Pradesh, as they feel that they won’t be having any say in the election campaigning and that the entire show will be run by the central leadership. “In Karnataka too, the central leadership took the control of the election campaign and we know what has happened. We fear that if the party does not give a free hand to local leaders, Telangana too will meet the same fate as Karnataka,” a leader said.

Meanwhile, in Madhya Pradesh, the Prime Minister is not even mentioning the name of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and his government’s achievements. In fact, Chouhan’s name has not figured in the two lists announced by the party, raising doubts over his candidature. With rifts among party leaders continuing in Telangana, leaders here are fearing that seniors here too might be sidelined.